Love me if you can...

What do you do when you want to say something?

Just say it!

Pretty simple it sounds but not quite so. Saying things that affect no one like “I am hungry”, “I will go home”, “I am tired”, “can I sleep” are simple and you will say them a thousand times without batting an eyelid. Try saying “I hate you” and you will realize how difficult it is to hate a person. Funny it may sound, but try saying “I love you” and you will find your conscience asking ‘do you, really?’

Petty differences arise everyday with people we live and work with everyday. It is so very difficult to agree with everyone at all times and then there are moments when you have to say NO not only to an idea but to some person also. You may even think that it is not possible to accept the idea or the person ever again. Stop for a while in such situations before declaring ‘universal hatred’. Think whether you also may be seen in the same light by that person and ‘hated’ so. Do you really hate that person or just his ideas?

I was going through Jalaludin Mohammed Rumi’s Masnavi and Fihi ma Fihi. Rumi incidentally is accepted universally as the founder-philosopher-saint of the school of Islamic thought that we know as Sufism. He asks if a saint who is immersed in God slaps another person, is it the saint or God who has slapped the person? The most common repertoire would be to say that if he is a real saint, first of all he would not slap. Secondly, why are we dragging an invisible God into the acts of a human? It is the saint and he must repent his action.

Think again. If he is a saint and has renounced his worldly likes and dislikes for the love of God, there is no reason to suspect that he would slap a person for something as silly as personal dislike. Secondly, if someone ventures and manages to tread over the virtuous to an extent that even he would give a slap, then our man deserves the slap and it is indeed the and of God that gave him the slap. The faithful and sincere devotee is actually a manifestation of God and His love for fellow humans. Hate and mischief towards such a soul is actually mischief towards one’s own self. Hatred therefore is mischief manifesting itself towards own self. It is difficult to hate your own self. That is why it is very difficult to hate (in real terms) some one else too.

Well the question then is, why is it also difficult to say ‘I love you’ so easily?

How many of us actually ‘love’ someone or something? Will we do beyond the call of every compulsion, fear or temptation what the ‘love’ actually demands of us? Will we sacrifice everything that we have, including our honor and wealth, for what we love? Will we simply surrender ourselves to that which we love? If the unconditional answer is ‘yes’, perhaps we could say that we love that person or thing. If not, then perhaps what we have towards the person is a strong ‘like’ or ‘desire’ which are matters of emotion. Love is a matter of the spirit.

The best example that I can think of quoting is that of the most favored of all of Lord Krishna’s Gopis, Radha. In one of the bhajans by Hari Om Sharan, there is a line:

US WAQT JALDI AANA   (when the time for my soul to depart comes, you [Krishna] must appear before me quickly)

RADHEY KO SAAT LAANA (bring Radha with you)

NAHI SHYAM BOOL JAANA (hey Krishna, do not forget to bring her!)

Those of us familiar with the stories of Krishna will know that He is the incarnation of Vishnu, Lakshmi is his spiritual consort and even as Krishna, He had two consorts, Rukmini and Satyabhama. So why ask him to come posthaste but with Radha? There were a thousand Gopis in Mathura but they had their role only in his childhood. They played with him and by His grace, received the good fortune of being His play mates. Why not ask Him to come and be present by Himself or at best with His actual consort?

The answer is in the word ‘love’. Think of you as Krishna. There are hundreds of Gopis adoring you and there is this Radha who completely devotes herself to your love. She dances with you, plays with you, surrenders herself to the mellifluous notes of the flute and remains ever in tearful joy and bliss of your company. Under the circumstances, even without such a girl prompting you, you would have got married to her and made her your queen. She would have enjoyed the pomp, glory and a richly deserving life of a queen as your love. In the instant case however, Radha just continued to live in her love for Krishna so much that such material rewards like being a queen had no meaning for her. She remained so much in Krishna that even Krishna came to be known as Radheyshyam than Shayamradhey. Her loves permeates His persona and even His being as God. Together, they symbolize LOVE in its truest form. The thousands of bhajans and songs in praise of Radha’s love for Krishna are testimony to the fact that ‘Love’ goes beyond the physical and symbolic – it is actually spiritual.

It is difficult to love or hate anyone, unless we actually cross the threshold of the physical and tread into the spiritual. Of course, we are guided by such sentiments in our daily lives that, at best, can only be classified as emotional likes and dislikes. Learning to love and if needed, to hate, is a matter of spiritual discovery. Like in every other creation of God, both love and hate exist but they exist beyond our emotional range. They both are a state of existence that needs to be experienced.

I am reminded of a line my professor quoted while teaching child psychology:

LOVE ME IF YOU CAN, HATE ME IF YOU MUST. BUT NEVER IGNORE ME!         

Learning to distinguish between mere like or dislike and love or hate is important as the former will keep us tied in our mundane and the latter would embark us on a journey that will transform our life!